Batfamily Ponderings
by QueenVictoria88
Summary: What-ifs about the Batfamily. Mainly their growing up with Bruce as a Father figure. Then about the things that make them human or the things that separate them like their sleeping and their nightmares.


Chapter 1

A history of the boys getting in trouble and Bruce having to be the Dad.

The first time Bruce Wayne was ever interrupted in a Wayne Enterprize meeting for something non-Batman related that he actually took the call was when the Principal of Gotham Academy called. Dick Grayson had only been with Bruce for six or so months and therefore his role as guardian still felt stiff, like a new collared shirt. However, Bruce attempted an open mind when taking the phone. As Principal McConnelly began to praise how wonderful Dick Grayson normally was, being that he was a straight A student and a natural charmer, her voice changed when she began to explain that today, Richard was caught smoking in the bathroom. She was asking Bruce to promptly pick up his now suspended ward. As Bruce sped in the Bentley trying to decide how he was going to handle this or what he was going to say in response to a two day suspension from smoking cigarettes, he pulled in to see his anxious Robin waiting for him outside. The car hadn't yet been stationary in park when Dick rushed up to the car pleading his innocence.

"Bruce, I swear, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time! I wasn't the one smoking. I just went to the bathroom and these kids were there smoking and I couldn't leave fast enough! You have to bel-"

"Car. Now."

Those two days were spent teaching Robin how to cause a distraction and escape in a room full of people without them noticing. "The Stealth of Batman", he explained, "is integral to both Bruce Wayne and Batman."

On the last night of the suspension, he sent Robin home early from patrol and he himself eventually retired for the night to get his usual three hours of sleep. As he sat back in his chair at the Batcomputer, having a glass of gin on the rocks, he heard his trusted Butler approach.

"Yes?"

"Oh nothing, Sir, I was just going to ask your feelings on the matter."

"The matter of what, Alfred?"

"Young Master Grayson's suspension."

"You don't believe him?"

"It's not that, Sir. The matter of you getting called by the Principal. Your ward being trouble... your adjusting to being in charge of someone..."

"What are you getting at? I can hear the grin no matter how hard your attempt of restraining yourself."

"Well, I didn't expect to be able to hide my gloating from the world's greatest detective."

"Alfred, you never had to... I never-"

"Many times, Sir. And yet, you too were ALWAYS innocent."

Bruce grunted with a slight grin.

Dick was a relatively well behaved kid and the only time he got into real trouble or found himself at odds with Bruce was when he disobeyed direct orders from Batman. Bruce had gotten lucky with Grayson. Leaving him incredibly over confident at his parenting skills so when Jason Todd arrived on the scene, Bruce went about it as if it was Dick 2.0. He enrolled Jason into Gotham Academy. During week one, Bruce's presence was required in the Principal's office six times to address Jason's disciplinary issues.

The two get into the house after the long drive of Bruce preparing himself and Jason fretting. Fuming with anger. "Jason! There are only five days to the school week and yet you've managed to get into trouble six times. And to add insult to injury this is your first week of school!"

"Bruce, I swear that window wasn't there yesterday, call it... a miscalculation!"

"I don't care! it's coming out of your allowance. And the stink bombs?"

"I told you. That was just a prank gone wrong! Total accident, will never happen again!"

"And I'm sure calling the teacher an 'incompetent mule' was also an accident?"

"How was I suppose to know she spoke another language?! She's a math teacher! I mean after learning probability, the chances of that were two to about-"

"Enough! I know you haven't been in a school in a while, but do you really think you can concoct an excuse for cutting class?"

"I read my schedule wrong, thought that's what it said."

"It said gym!"

"Yea, like I could leave to go work out!"

Bruce slapped his palm to his face. Exhausted by being torn between the sarcastic attitude and an orphaned child not ready to deal with other children and authority. "Alright Jason, you don't want to go to school?"

"Ha. Is that an option? Consider it a HELL YES!"

"It is."

"Then of course!"

"Fine. You start homeschooling with Alfred on Monday."

"Great! So Awesome! Yeah!"

"Sure."

"Wait? Why did you say it like that?... Bruce? ... Don't walk away. Bruce!"

The first time the Principal called Bruce on behalf of Tim, Bruce's genius, gifted child, his right hand, Bruce's heart sank. Bruce had hoped Tim's brilliance would make him exempt from disciplinary issues.

"Tim, you can't tell people you're special needs to get out of group projects!"

"Why not? Technically, I tested off the spectrum so being gifted is like a special need."

"NO!"

"But I'm smarter, faster and better than everyone in my entire class! How is it fair to make me work with them?"

Bruce just gives a long sigh as his Batphone is blowing up because Barbara ran the sample and has the results, Nightwing is texting him about some mess with the Titans asking about the Justice League and Red Hood is fighting with the police so Gordon's lighting the signal.

"Come on Bruce, just have Alfred homeschool me. I'll be graduated by the end of the school year."

"You're only a Sophmore now."

"And I built the new Batcomputer in 48 hrs. ...I'll be graduated by the end of the year."

"Fine. But I'm holding you to that or else you're not only going back to school but you'll be joining three clubs of my choice."

"Deal."

Bruce walking away, "I haven't seen a good school production in a while."

"Not going to happen, will be graduated by the end of the year!"

Then Damian showed up and made Bruce a biological Father for the first time. He figured it would be different, dealing with his own blood. After a month of Damian living in the Wayne Mansion and having the bushes hacked, the chandeliers broken, cars stolen, multiple animals taking up surprise residency and a horribly failed school interview where the police were unfortunately called...

Alfred walks up behind Batman sitting at the Batcomputer. "The enrollment deadline for Gotham Academy is this Friday, Sir. Shall I go ahead and place Master Damian on the-"

"No."

"Sir, with all due respect, if you are going to ask me to teach him here, I beg of you-"

"No. Alfred. I wouldn't subject you to that."

"Then what, may I enquire are you planning on..."

Bruce holds up a packet that reads 'Dalton Boy's Academy.'

"Oh, boarding school. Yes, that should suit Master Damian well. Nice choice, Sir."

Bruce grunted. "It was more a polite suggestion."

"Really, by whom?"

Bruce handed Alfred the letter which he began to read aloud. "Dear Mr. Wayne,

As much as we appreciate all of your generous support and the presence of your children delight this school, I thought this an option you may like to consider.

With Kind Regards, Principal McConnelly"

Alfred fell silent.

"What? No gloating?"

".. I ... At least she said they were a delight, Sir."

"Mmhm."

Chapter 2

Falling Asleep

Bruce sleeps on his back. He does this because it is easier for him to clear his mind when on his back and thus he falls asleep faster. He has practiced lucid dreaming for years and that is where it started, Bruce trying to control his nightmares. He also knows sleeping on his back is the best and quickest for muscle repair. Even when Selina or company is with him, he lays on his back and lets them lie on his chest.

Dick just sleeps. However he lands in bed is how he sleeps. During the night he tosses and turns and he has found himself waking up in the strangest, most contoured of positions with limbs around pillows and blankets. It is often difficult for him to untangle himself out of bed. It is even harder for him when he has a female companion because he can't stay still all night. If he starts out spooning, it doesn't last long. Both Barbara and Kori gave up after a few weeks of trying to fall asleep while cuddling because they were always shaken awake by Dick rolling away.

Jason sleeps on his side. He grew up curling into a ball for warmth on the street. Now he likes to fall asleep looking at his gun beside him. He also likes that being on his side allows him to sleep with an arm wrapped under his pillow near the other gun he has stashed underneath. He takes a long time to fall asleep. It is hard for him to turn his mind off and he can literally lay there for hours with his eyes closed relaxing, but being completely awake. He has less nightmares on his side. Maybe because he sleeps lighter, less deep. If he isn't alone, he doesn't sleep. He closes his eyes and listens to her breathing and tries to sleep. He goes in and out of consciousness, but he's always awake. After the Joker, he can't let himself be vulnerable.

Tim is a stone-cold passed out stomach sleeper. He doesn't sleep much, but when he does he just plops down on his stomach and sleeps deeply like a baby. He's fallen asleep on top of Stephanie's chest hundreds of times, especially while she was talking since he's always exhausted. Multiple members of the Batfamily have found Tim sprawled out in some of the strangest of places in the Mansion passed out to the world. Bruce says the strangest was at the top of the stairs. Half of Tim was on the landing and the other half was on the stairs and he spent about an hour trying to figure out the scenario in which that would happen. He went with, Tim tripped and decided to take a nap.

Barbara always starts on her back and then rolls to her side. She likes to fall asleep while reading a book on her back and if it's a real page turner she'll fight the urge of sleep and curl up on her side desperately trying to remain awake for the last few sentences.

Damian starts on his side, arms crossed. He gets into bed and tries to fall asleep, almost forcing himself. Then when his body relaxes he ends up on his back just like his Father.

Alfred doesn't sleep because he's a robot. Unbeknownst to everyone, which is why he never dies. Instead, he just plugs into the wall and reads up on medical journals. Ha, Just kidding. He sleeps on his back peacefully.

Chapter 3

Nightmares

After shooting up in a cold sweat, Bruce stares into the darkness that he's so comfortable with, the black he's trained himself to be able to see in. He makes sure he's alone. He goes into the bathroom still in the dark and wets his face. He lays back down and tries to sleep for the last part of the three hours he's designated for himself per night. If he doesn't fall back to sleep he gets up and starts his workout early.

Dick's eyes pop open, heart racing until he realizes it was a dream. Most times he gets out of bed and goes to the couch and turns on the tv on low. He'll watch it until he falls back asleep. So be it if he never makes it back into bed, the couch is just as good. Rarely, but sometimes, he'll call Barbara with the excuse of "checking in". They'll laugh about something stupid and he'll feel better and then the urge to go back to sleep will return.

Jason will be drenched through every time. He'll wake up soaking wet from fear and stress of his nightmares about his death and the pit that he'll have to take a shower. He loses an hour most nights to this. He's gotten used to leaving out an extra shirt and boxer briefs on the chair for when he has to shower in the night. It's also why he does laundry so often. Dick and Tim have been over to his place and have noticed there's always a cycle of laundry happening and so they tease him thinking it's because he murders people and so he gets his clothes dirty or that he has OCD. He doesn't bother to correct them.

Tim rarely has nightmares. He sleeps at the point of critical exhaustion so he hardly dreams and even more rarely has nightmares. He is usually so tired that if he does wake up from a bad dream he'll sit up for a second and then shake it off and go straight back to sleep.

Barbara hates nightmares. She feels weak when she has one and immediately will turn on a light and start reading or working a case. She doesn't like to dwell on them because she has analyzed her mind enough to know what they are stemming from and so she'd rather occupy her brain with something else until she tires again.

Damian has very violent nightmares. Being that he was trained as an assassin from such a young age and then came to live with Bruce and had to unlearn all of that, his subconscious has him having violent guilt filled dreams of the people he's killed. He often wakes up from his body jerking from some type of fight action, a punch or a kick. It startles him and sometimes to the point of nausea. He'll quickly turn on the light and then open his bedroom door and call for the dog to come stay with him. However this has become such an occurrence the dog usually waits outside his bedroom door. Once the dog curls up and gets comfortable on the bed, Damian pets him gently till he himself falls back asleep.

Alfred's nightmares are usually about losing them, any of them. He'll open his eyes, flustered after having one. He'll get out of bed, put on his robe and slippers and then go and check on each of them if they're there. Or he'll go down to the Batcomputer and scan the camera's on Gotham or Bludehaven to see if he can catch a glimpse of them soaring through the air, from rooftop to rooftop. He likes to make sure, even though he knows, that it was just a dream.


End file.
